Man choked for letting phone ring at Seattle theater

I know it's hard to believe, but this is not a photo from the choking event in question. (Getty Images)

Don’t you just hate it when someone’s phone keeps ringing at the movie theater? And then someone tells them to shut it off and they don’t?

You know the drill. Inevitably, an irate movie patron will try to choke the owner of the ringing phone. Then the police show up and before you know it, you missed an important plot twist in “Tower Heist.”

Sheesh. It’s like some people just don’t have any respect for Eddie Murphy movies anymore.

That’s how a ringing phone was finally silenced at the Majestic Bay Theatres in Ballard last week.

KOMO News reports police were called to the theater after a series of strange events unfolded, culminating in a disgruntled patron trying to choke a man who was talking to himself and letting his phone ring during a 5 p.m. showing of “Tower Heist.”

According to the (alleged victim)and a handful of witnesses, the interrupted movie-watcher, who appeared tense and disturbed, left and returned to the theater twice, aggressively brushing against the cell-phone owner’s legs.

On his second return to the theater, the agitated man – tragically forgetting another key lesson from “A Trip to the Movies” (if there is a problem, get the manager) – grabbed the cell-phone owner’s throat with both hands and choked him for about half a minute, according to the report. The man told police he couldn’t breathe, and witnesses corroborated his story.

The choker allegedly told the chokee that he would tell the theater’s managers that he was the one who was attacked. Police arrived on the scene, got the man’s phone number from theater staff and tracked him down.